We celebrated my big girl's fourth birthday on the weekend with a teddy bears' picnic themed party. So much fun! Also, so much work for me but I said that last year about the twins' first birthday and I still went back for more. I think I quite like it and having time to do these things is certainly a perk of being a stay-at-home-mum.
One of the big differences from last year is that Miss now 4 is actually very helpful. She pretty much packed the party bags independently. She helped make the bows for pin the bow-tie on the bear as well as giving genuine, constructive feedback on my efforts to draw the bear. She also really tried to help when I was having trouble doing the eyes for on the cake and put up some pretty decent ideas while we were brainstorming solutions. On the morning, she got out all the bears and helped set them up on the picnic rugs. This wasn't just token helping but honestly made the task quicker. Proper, useful helping.
I recommend the teddy bears' picnic theme. There are lots of bear things to do. I did teddy bear shaped fairy bread, home-made tiny teddies and marshmallow teddies as well as putting ears on some of the platters to theme-up the non-bear foods.
Pin the bow-tie on the bear went well but I realise now takes quite a long time so probably better for smaller groups. I had planned to award someone a prize but the boy who won was so thrilled there was really no need for a prize. We also did musical bobs but I didn't end up making anyone the winner. We just did it for activities sake and they were all bear songs with obvious actions so the children got right into that.
It was all over in two hours but it was lots of fun and we have one very happy four year old. Definitely worth the effort.
